al knowledge of my native State, and of the States of New
Jersey and Pennsylvania, was now superior to that of most men with whom
I was in the habit of conversing, and I subsequently made several little
journeys and excursions that furthered me in the knowledge.

As yet, I knew nothing by personal observation of New England. In the
early part of 1813, having completed my nineteenth year, I went to
Middlebury, in Vermont, on the banks of Otter Creek, where, I
understand, my great-grandfather, who was an Englishman, to have died.
Soon after I accompanied Mr. Ep. Jones, a man of decided enterprise, but
some eccentricities of character, on an extensive tour through the New
England States. We set out from Lake Dunmore, in Salisbury, in a chaise,
and proceeding over the Green Mountains across the State of Vermont, to
Bellows' Falls, on the Connecticut River, there struck the State of New
Hampshire, and went across it, and a part of Massachusetts, to Boston.
Thence, after a few days' stop, we continued our route to Hartford, the
seat of government of Connecticut, and thence south to the valley of the
Hudson at Rhinebeck. Here we crossed the Hudson to Kingston (the Esopus
of Indian days), and proceeded inland, somewhat circuitously, to the
Catskill Mountains; after visiting which, we returned to the river, came
up its valley to Albany, and returned, by way of Salem, to Salisbury.
All this was done with one horse, a compact small-boned animal, who was
a good oats-eater, and of whom we took the very best care. I made this
distich on him:--

Feed me well with oats and hay,
And I'll carry you forty miles a-day.

This long and circuitous tour gave me a general idea of this portion of
the Union, and enabled me to institute many comparisons between the
manners and customs and advantages of New York and New England.

I am again compelled to lay my pencil aside by the quantity of water
thrown into the canoe by the paddles of the men, who have been roused up
by the increasing waves.

_4th_. We went on under a press of sail last evening until eight
o'clock, when we encamped in a wide sandy bay in the Straits of
Michigan, having come a computed distance of 80 miles. On looking about,
we found in the sand the stumps of cedar pickets, forming an antique
enclosure, which, I judged, must have been the first site of the Mission
of St. Ignace, founded by Pierre Marquette, upwards of a hundred and
eighty years ago. Not a lisp of su